Search This Blog

Stop the Madness! 我受夠了!

If you haven’t noticed it, then either you are hard of hearing or you are one of them. I am referring to those in Hong Kong who say “may I help’choo?”

Earlier tonight I called a restaurant in Central to make a dinner reservation. The operator answered in English, “thank you for calling XXX Restaurant, how may I help’choo?” I almost dropped my phone, not because it was my first time hearing the mispronunciation, but because I was fed up with the fact that such a glaring mistake can go uncorrected for so long.

Over the centuries, many have attempted to butcher the English language but no attempt is as offensive or nearly as successful as this one. Uptight Englishmen are known to cringe whenever they hear Singaporeans speak Singlish, injecting their local flavors into the language of Chaucer and Shakespeare. Bizarre as the hybrid language may sound, Singlish is by and large just an accent, and so long as everyone still respects the basic rules of grammar and phonics, accents are simply a matter of taste. Who is to say, for instance, that the Australian accent is any less pleasant than the Jamaican? The problem with saying “may I help’choo,” on the other hand, goes far beyond taste. It is just plain wrong.

Another reason I take such offense with the mispronounced phrase is that those who say it are often people who think they speak very good English. From the concierge at the Four Seasons to the senior bank manager at HSBC, these presumably Western-educated, self-assured professionals repeat the phrase day-in and day-out with complete nonchalance, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It makes me wonder: is that what they teach our kids at school these days? How did this grotesque phenomenon get started and why hasn’t anyone done something about it? No wonder so many parents here send their kids to international schools these days.

Worse still, there are disturbing signs that the disease has gone from a domestic outbreak to an all-out pandemic across Asia. In my recent trips to Bangkok, Taipei, Shanghai and even Singapore, I noticed that some of the men and women in the service industry were starting to make the same mistake. Many countries in the region look to wealthier and worldlier Hong Kong for best practices in business management. What these countries need to realize is that Hong Kong may be a lot of things, but English teacher it is not.

Please stop!

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, I will go over a basic rule of pronunciation for those who don’t already know it. The only time a “y” sound becomes a “ch” sound is when the word preceding it ends with a “t” or its phonetic equivalent, such as the past tense of a verb ending with a “k” (like “kicked”) or a “p” (like “helped”). In other words, while it is correct to say “nice to meet’choo” and “I helped’choo yesterday,” it is completely, utterly and hopelessly wrong to say “may I help’choo.”

So there you have it. I hope you will join me on my one-man crusade to stop the madness.

Get link

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Google+

Email

Other Apps

Get link

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Google+

Email

Other Apps

Popular Posts

“We are here to visit a friend,” I said to the guard at the entrance.
Tiffany, Joshua Wong Chi-fung’s long-time girlfriend, trailed behind me. It was our first time visiting Joshua at Pik Uk Correctional Institution and neither of us quite knew what to expect.

“Has your friend been convicted?” asked the guard. We nodded in unison. There are different visiting hours and rules for suspects and convicts. Each month, convicts may receive up to two half-hour visits from friends and family, plus two additional visits from immediate family upon request.
The guard pointed to the left and told us to register at the reception office. “I saw your taxi pass by earlier,” he said while eyeing a pair of camera-wielding paparazzi on the prowl. “Next time you can tell the driver to pull up here to spare you the walk.”
At the reception counter, Officer Wong took our identity cards and checked them against the “List.” Each inmate is allowed to grant visitation rights to no more than 10 friends and fam…

Jason is the bestselling author of Umbrellas in Bloom (2016), No City for Slow Men (2013) and HONG KONG State of Mind (2010). Together, the three books form a Hong Kong trilogy that tracks the city's post-colonial development. His short stories have appeared in various anthologies. In 2017, Jason co-edited and contributed to Hong Kong 20/20, an anthology that marks the 20th anniversary of the handover. In July 2017, he was appointed Advising Editor for the Los Angeles Revie…

You have reached a midlife plateau. You have everything you thought you wanted: a happy family, a well-located apartment and a cushy management job. The only thing missing from that bourgeois utopia is a bit of oomph, a bit of recognition that you have played by the rules and done all right. A Porsche 911? Too clichéd. A rose gold Rolex? Got that last Christmas. An extramarital affair that ends in a costly divorce or a boiled bunny? No thanks. How about a membership at one of the city’s country clubs where accomplished individuals like yourself hang out in plaid pants and flat caps? Sounds great, but you’d better get in line.

Clubs are an age-old concept that traces back to the Ancient Greeks and Romans. The introduction of coffee beans to England in the mid-17th Century spurred the proliferation of coffeehouses for like-minded gentlemen to trade gossip about the monarchy over a hot beverage. In the centuries since, these semi-secret hideouts evolved into main street establishments t…

This month marks the third birthday of my blog As I See It, a social commentary on the trials and tribulations of living in Hong Kong. The occasion coincides with the 100th article I have written under the banner. Having reached a personal milestone, I decided to take the opportunity to reflect on my still-young writing career and wallow in, dare we say, self-congratulatory indulgence.

It all started in November 2008 on the heels of the last U.S. presidential election. I was getting ready to create a personal website as a platform to consolidate my interests and pursuits. To do that I needed content. That’s how my blog – or my “online op-ed column” as I prefer to call it – came into being.
Before I knew it, I was banging it out in front of my iMac every night, going on and off the tangent and in and out of my stream of consciousness about the odd things I experienced in the city, the endless parade of pink elephants I saw everyday that no one seemed to bat an eyelid at. Though singi…

When I shook his hand for the first time, I thought he was the strangest seventeen-year-old I’d ever met.
It was 2014, and considering how much Hong Kong has changed in the last three year, it felt like a lifetime ago.
Joshua sat across from me at a table in the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, with his iPhone in one hand and an iPad in the other. I ordered him a lemon iced tea with extra syrup.
He was eager to begin our conversation, not because he was excited about being interviewed for my article, but because he wanted to get it over with and get on with the rest of his jam-packed day.
During our 45-minute chat, he spoke in rapid-fire Cantonese, blinking every few seconds in the way robots are programmed to blink like humans. He was quick, precise and focused.

He was also curt.
When I asked him if he had a Twitter account, he snapped, “Nobody uses Twitter in Hong Kong. Next question.”
I wasn’t the least offended by his bluntness—I chalked it up to gumption and precocity. For a te…

The school year had barely begun when two incidents—both testing the limits of free speech on campus—unfolded at Chinese University and Education University and sent management scrambling for a response.
On Monday, at least three large banners bearing the words “Hong Kong independence” were spotted in various locations at Chinese University, including one that draped across the famous “Beacon” sculpture outside the school’s main library. Within hours, the banners were removed by the school authorities.
A few days later, a sign “congratulating” Education Undersecretary Choi Yuk-lin (蔡若蓮) on her son’s recent suicide appeared on Education University’s Democracy Wall, a public bulletin board for students to express opinions and exchange views. Likewise, the sign was taken down shortly thereafter.

That could have been the end of the controversies had university management not succumbed to the temptation to say a few choice words of their own. In the end, it was the reaction from the schoo…

There are things about America that boggle the mind: gun violence, healthcare costs and Donald Trump. But once in a while – not often, just once in a while – the country gets something so right and displays such courage that it reminds the rest of the world what an amazing place it truly is. What happened three days ago at the nation’s capital is shaping up to be one of those instances.

Last Friday, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a 5-to-4 decision on same-sex marriage, the most important gay rights ruling in the country’s history. In Obergefell v. Hodges, Justice Kennedy wrote, “It would misunderstand [gay and lesbian couples] to say that they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find fulfillment for themselves… They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”
With those simple words, Justice Kennedy made marriage equality a constitutionally prote…

Every Chinese New Year I buy myself a tangerine tree for good luck. Ripe fruits fallen to the ground will mould and turn white and green within 36 hours.
Every Thanksgiving I roast a turkey big enough to feed twelve. Leftovers taste better the next day but will spoil by the week’s end even when kept in the fridge.

The unifying theme of these two unrelated household anecdotes is that unprocessed food does not last. Spoilage is part of nature’s metabolism. So how is it possible that the Valencia oranges on my kitchen counter look exactly the same as they did five weeks ago at the store, or that the expiration date stamped on a can of luncheon meat reads “March 2018”? I can’t help but wonder what really is in our food.
Our appetite for things that taste better, look nicer, last longer and cost less, from breakfast cereal to meat products and fresh produce, is insatiable. Consumer demand has spurred the growing use of pesticides, flavorings, colorings and preservatives in the food indu…

About Me

Born in Hong Kong, Jason is a globe-trotter who spent his entire adult life in Europe and various cities in the United States and Canada before settling back in his birthplace to rediscover his roots.
Jason is a news columnist, a bestselling author, a practicing lawyer and an adjunct law professor. He is the President of PEN Hong Kong and a member of the Progressive Lawyers Group.
Jason lives in Hong Kong and can be contacted at info@jasonyng.com. For more, visit www.jasonyng.com.

About this site

As I See It is a biweekly column that began in 2008 as a social commentary on Hong Kong's many contradictions and oddities. It also tackles the city's pressing social, political and existential issues. Jason's articles are reproduced in the online edition of the South China Morning Post and are frequently cited by overseas news media.

Umbrellas in Bloom

Umbrellas in Bloom, the first book published in English to chronicle the occupy movement of 2014 and the last instalment of Jason Y. Ng's Hong Kong trilogy, debuts No.1 on Amazon.com in the Hong Kong History category. It is all you need to know about the biggest political upheaval in post-handover Hong Kong: who took part in it, why it happened, how it transpired, and what it did and did not achieve.

No City for Slow Men

Published in 2013, No City for Slow Men examines some of the pressing social, cultural and existential issues facing Hong Kong. It is a treatise on local life that is thought-provoking, touching and immensely entertaining.

HK State of Mind

Published in 2010, HONG KONG State of Mind is a collection of essays that zeroes in on the city’s idiosyncrasies with deadpan precision. It promises something for everyone: a travel journal for the passing visitor, a user’s manual for the wide-eyed expat, and an open diary for the native Hong Konger looking for moments of reflection.